Download or read book How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone written by Sasa Stanisic and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brilliant debut novel” about a young Bosnian War refugee who finds the secret to survival in language and stories (Los Angeles Times). For Aleksandar Krsmanović, Grandpa Slavko’s stories endow life in Višegrad with a kaleidoscopic brilliance. Neighbors, friends, and family past and present take on a mythic quality; the River Drina courses through town like the pulse of life itself. So when his grandfather dies suddenly, Aleksandar promises to carry on the tradition. But then soldiers invade Višegrad—a town previously unconscious of racial and religious divides—and it’s no longer important that Aleksandar is the best magician in the nonaligned states; suddenly it is important to have the right last name and to convince the soldiers that Asija, the Muslim girl who turns up in his apartment building, is his sister. Alive with the magic of childhood, the surreality of war and exile, and the power of language, every page of this glittering novel thrums with the joy of storytelling. “Wildly inventive.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Poignant and hauntingly beautiful.” —The Village Voice “A funny, heartbreaking, beautifully written novel.” —The Seattle Times

Download or read book Where You Come From written by Sasa Stanisic and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award A Washington Post, Chicago Review of Books, Kirkus, and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Month “Inventive, funny and moving.” —The New York Times Book Review Translated from the German by Damion Searls Winner of the German Book Prize, Saša Stanišic’s inventive and surprising novel asks: what makes us who we are? In August, 1992, a boy and his mother flee the war in Yugoslavia and arrive in Germany. Six months later, the boy’s father joins them, bringing a brown suitcase, insomnia, and a scar on his thigh. Saša Stanišic’s Where You Come From is a novel about this family, whose world is uprooted and remade by war: their history, their life before the conflict, and the years that followed their escape as they created a new life in a new country. Blending autofiction, fable, and choose-your-own-adventure, Where You Come From is set in a village where only thirteen people remain, in lost and made-up memories, in coincidences, in choices, and in a dragons’ den. Translated by Damion Searls, it’s a novel about homelands, both remembered and imagined, lost and found. A book that playfully twists form and genre with wit and heart to explore questions that lie inside all of us: about language and shame, about arrival and making it just in time, about luck and death, about what role our origins and memories play in our lives.

Download or read book Before the Feast written by Sasa Stanisic and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s the night before the feast in the village of Fu¨rstenfelde (population: an odd number). The village is asleep. Except for the ferryman—he’s dead. And Mrs. Kranz, the night-blind painter, who wants to depict her village for the first time at night. A bell-ringer and his apprentice want to ring the bells—the only problem is that the bells have gone. A vixen is looking for eggs for her young, and Mr. Schramm is discovering more reasons to quit life than to quit smoking. Someone has opened the doors to the Village Archive, but what drives the sleepless out of their houses is not that which was stolen, but that which has escaped. Old stories, myths, and fairy tales are wandering about the streets with the people. They come together in a novel about a long night, a mosaic of village life, in which the long-established and newcomers, the dead and the living, craftsmen, pensioners, and noble robbers in football shirts bump into each other. They all want to bring something to a close, in this night before the feast.

Download or read book Calligraphers Secret written by Rafik Schami and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even as a young man, Hamid Farsi is acclaimed as a master of the art of calligraphy. But as time goes by, he sees that weaknesses in the Arabic language and its script limit its uses in the modern world. In a secret society, he works out schemes for radical reform, never guessing what risks he is running. His beautiful wife, Noura, is ignorant of the great plans on her husband’s mind. She knows only his cold, avaricious side and so it is no wonder she feels flattered by the attentions of his amusing, lively young apprentice. And so begins a passionate love story of a Muslim woman and a Christian man.

Download or read book Close to Jedenew written by Kevin Vennemann and published by Melville House Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a true occurrence, this stunning novella - already a European sensation - tells the story of a town gone mad in its desire to survive the Nazis... by getting rid of its Jews.

Download or read book All for Nothing written by Walter Kempowski and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wealthy family tries--and fails--to seal themselves off from the chaos of post-World War II life surrounding them in this stunning novel by one of Germany's most important post-war writers. In East Prussia, January 1945, the German forces are in retreat and the Red Army is approaching. The von Globig family's manor house, the Georgenhof, is falling into disrepair. Auntie runs the estate as best she can since Eberhard von Globig, a special officer in the German army, went to war, leaving behind his beautiful but vague wife, Katharina, and her bookish twelve-year-old son, Peter. As the road fills with Germans fleeing the occupied territories, the Georgenhof begins to receive strange visitors--a Nazi violinist, a dissident painter, a Baltic baron, even a Jewish refugee. Yet in the main, life continues as banal, wondrous, and complicit as ever for the family, until their caution, their hedged bets, and their denial are answered by the wholly expected events they haven't allowed themselves to imagine. All for Nothing, published in 2006, was the last novel by Walter Kempowski, one of postwar Germany's most acclaimed and popular writers.

Download or read book The Shape of Things to Come written by H. G. Wells and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2016-09-14 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1933, "The Shape of Things to Come" is science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells. Within it, world events between 1933 and 2106 are speculated with a single superstate representing the solution to all humanity's problems. A classic example of Wellsian prophesy, this volume is highly recommended for fans of his work and of the science fiction genre. Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Download or read book Crocodile Tears written by Mercedes Rosende and published by Bitter Lemon Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fast, slick and acerbically funny: buckle up and enjoy the ride." Guardian The setting: Montevideo’s Old Town, with its dark alleys, crumbling facades and watchful residents. The gig: an armoured truck robbery. The cast: Diego, a failed kidnapper with weak nerves, Ursula Lopez, an amateur criminal with an insatiable appetite, El Roto, the broken one, a notorious hoodlum with excessive self-confidence. Dr Antinucci, a shady lawyer with big plans. And finally, Leonilda Lima, a washed-out police inspector with a glimmer of faith in justice.

Download or read book My Cat Yugoslavia written by Pajtim Statovci and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A love story set in two countries in two radically different moments in time, bringing together a young man, his mother, a boa constrictor, and one capricious cat. In 1980s Yugoslavia, a young Muslim girl is married off to a man she hardly knows, but what was meant to be a happy match goes quickly wrong. Soon thereafter her country is torn apart by war and she and her family flee. Years later, her son, Bekim, grows up a social outcast in present-day Finland, not just an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners, but a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only friend is a boa constrictor whom, improbably—he is terrified of snakes—he lets roam his apartment. Then, during a visit to a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat who moves in with him and his snake. It is this witty, charming, manipulative creature who starts Bekim on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons and make sense of the magical, cruel, incredible history of his family. And it is this that, in turn, enables him finally, to open himself to true love—which he will find in the most unexpected place

Download or read book Nineteen eighty four written by George Orwell and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a dystopian social science fiction novel and morality tale. The novel is set in the year 1984, a fictional future in which most of the world has been destroyed by unending war, constant government monitoring, historical revisionism, and propaganda. The totalitarian superstate Oceania, ruled by the Party and known as Airstrip One, now includes Great Britain as a province. The Party uses the Thought Police to repress individuality and critical thought. Big Brother, the tyrannical ruler of Oceania, enjoys a strong personality cult that was created by the party's overzealous brainwashing methods. Winston Smith, the main character, is a hard-working and skilled member of the Ministry of Truth's Outer Party who secretly despises the Party and harbors rebellious fantasies.

Download or read book Shards written by Ismet Prcic and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book: “Brilliant . . . With verbal glee, Prcic serves up a darkly comic vision of the terrors and misunderstandings of immigration” (Shelf Awareness). Ismet Prcic’s brilliant, provocative, and energetic debut novel is about a young Bosnian, also named Ismet Prcic, who has fled his war-torn homeland and is now struggling to reconcile his past with his present life in California. He is advised that in order to make peace with the corrosive guilt he harbors over leaving his family behind, he must “write everything.” The result is a great rattlebag of memories, confessions, and fictions: sweetly humorous recollections of Ismet’s childhood in Tuzla appear alongside anguished letters to his mother about the challenges of life in this new world. As Ismet’s foothold in the present falls away, his writings are further complicated by stories from the point of view of another young man—real or imagined—named Mustafa, who joined a troop of elite soldiers and stayed in Bosnia to fight. When Mustafa’s story begins to overshadow Ismet’s new-world identity, the reader is charged with piecing together the fragments of a life that has become eerily unrecognizable, even to the one living it. Shards is a thrilling read—a harrowing war story, a stunningly inventive coming of age, and a heartbreaking saga of a splintered family. “Fierce, funny and real, it also says much about war, exile, guilt and fear.” —Chicago Sun-Times, Favorite Books of 2011

Download or read book In the Land of Israel written by Amos Oz and published by HMH. This book was released on 1993-10-31 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A snapshot of Israel and the West Bank in the 1980s, through the voices of its inhabitants, from the National Jewish Book Award–winning author of Judas. Notebook in hand, renowned author and onetime kibbutznik Amos Oz traveled throughout his homeland to talk with people—workers, soldiers, religious zealots, aging pioneers, desperate Arabs, visionaries—asking them questions about Israel’s past, present, and future. Observant or secular, rich or poor, native-born or new immigrant, they shared their points of view, memories, hopes, and fears, and Oz recorded them. What emerges is a distinctive portrait of a changing nation and a complex society, supplemented by Oz’s own observations and reflections, that reflects an insider’s view of a country still forming its own identity. In the Land of Israel is “an exemplary instance of a writer using his craft to come to grips with what is happening politically and to illuminate certain aspects of Israeli society that have generally been concealed by polemical formulas” (The New York Times).

Download or read book Dance of the Assassins written by Herve Jubert and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2005-09-20 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sorceress and a police detective track a reborn Jack the Ripper through historically recreated cities, from Victorian London to Montezuma's Mexico City.

Download or read book Something Remains written by Inge Barth-Grozinger and published by Hyperion Books for Children. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Erich Levi doesn’t understand why his father is so gloomy when the Nazis are elected to power. He’s too concerned with keeping his grades up, finding time to hang out by the river with his friends, and studying for his bar mitzvah, to worry about politics. But slowly, gradually, things begin to change for Erich. Some of the teachers begin to grade him unfairly – because he’s Jewish. The Hitler Youth boys in his class bully him, and he's excluded from sporting events and celebrations. His whole world seems to be crumbling: at school, and at home, where money is tight because no one wants to do business with a Jewish family. Not everyone is so cruel, though, and many of the Levis’ friends and neighbors remain fiercely loyal at great risk to themselves. With good people still around, Erich can’t believe the situation will last, and stubbornly holds onto his dreams – even as his homeland becomes a dangerous and alien place. Inge Barth-Grözinger has brilliantly recreated the life of a Jewish family in a small German town during the Nazi era. Something Remains provides, with terrible, everyday detail, an answer to the impossible question: how could the Holocaust have happened?

Download or read book A Grain of Wheat written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 1971 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz written by Maxim Biller and published by Pushkin Collection. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bruno Schulz has foreseen catastrophe and is almost paralysed by fear. His last chance of survival is to leave the home town to which, despite being in his late forties, he clings as if to a comforting blanket. So he retreats into his cellar (and sometimes hides under his desk) to write a letter to Thomas Mann: appealing to the literary giant to help him find a foreign publisher, in order that the reasons to leave Drohobych will finally outweigh the reasons to stay. Evoking Bulgakov and Singer, Biller takes us on an astounding, burlesque journey into Schulz's world, which vacillates between shining dreams and unbearable nightmares - a world which, like Schulz's own stories, prophesies the apocalyptic events to come. Includes two stories by Bruno Schulz: 'Birds' and 'The Cinnamon Shops', from The Street of Crocodiles.

Download or read book The E M G Story written by Francis James and published by Conran Octopus. This book was released on 1998 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: